The best fans in the Aviva

By Chris Wilkerson
http://v2journal.com/most-passionate-fans.html

Rarely is there a bigger weekend of Rugby than a set of fixtures which pits London Irish against Harlequins, and Saracens against London Wasps. February 11th and 12th saw these two huge games fall on one massive weekend for the Aviva Premiership. Big locally rivalries drive any sport, and for the fans they are occasions the rest of the season struggles to match. Nothing beats victory over your closest rivals, and the atmosphere is certainly at its peak on these big days. Without doubt, days like these are different for fans.

And for some fans, the build up was like nothing they had ever experienced before. Premiership Rugby’s title sponsor Aviva has partnered with the University of Bath to scientifically investigate which Aviva Premiership Rugby club has the most passionate fans, hoping to settle the debate once and for all. So, 12 fans from each club not only had their teams to worry about, but some scientists analysing their saliva and heart rates throughout the days play.

It was a tense couple of days too, with both games close at half time and full of tries, penalties and conversions. More than enough action to shake the heart rate of even the calmest fan.

A researcher from the University of Bath said: “Aviva’s ‘Most Passionate Fans’ project represents an interesting opportunity to examine fan's passion scientifically. There will always be arguments about how this can be done, but we believe we have devised the most objective way to identify and quantify passion.”

But what exactly were the researchers looking for? The University devised an equation for passion, its criteria based upon four key factors:
1. Fan Loyalty (commitment to the team)
2. Fan Match Evaluation (before and after the match)
3. Fan Psychology (mood and anxiety levels)
4. Fan Physiology (hormone and heart rate changes)

Back to the question that went through my mind immediately; what can spit tell anyone about how passionate someone is?
The researchers involved took the saliva from each fan before the start of play, during half time and after the matches finished and the results were determined. They were looking at levels of testosterone and cortisol, to see how these levels changed as the matches progressed. “Why Cortisol, of course, I knew they would be looking at that!” I hear you cry. Cortisol, I’m reliably informed, is the stress hormone.

Both the teams who had expected to win, coming into the game as favourites, were found to be at their most stressful level before the game, anticipating the action to come and clearly more worried about the outcome than their match expectation showed. As the match progressed, their cortisol levels decreased. Success often has that effect, or at least I am told so anyway.

London Irish fans had a very stressful first half. Their cortisol shot up during the first half (they were winning at the end of the first half) but back down again during the second half. Wasps’ fans had the opposite pattern. They had no change in cortisol over the first half but their levels of cortisol shot up during the second half – to the highest levels of any of the fans.

Changes in Testosterone were also interesting. The Harlequins – London Irish match was close and exciting. For both sets of fans levels of testosterone increased over the first half and increased again over the second half. Saracens fans maintained their levels of testosterone over the first half but then they dropped during the second half. Wasps’ fans testosterone dropped through the first half and then again through the second half.

Was this not all to be expected? Is this not why we love sport? The emotional highs and, far too often for most of us, the soul destroying lows?

The science continued as researchers analysed the psychologically of supporters passion.

The results followed the formula you would expect. The fans of the two winners left the grounds a little happier than they had entered. The losers found themselves far unhappier than they had entered, with a more drastic negative mood change for them than the positive ones both Saracens and Harlequins fans had felt. Thus, the losing fans both scored high for passion in this category.

A proof of passion? Or everything years of following sport has already proved?

Each section was scored out of 100, and these scores tallied together to find the most passionate fans. The table below shows the results from the study:

Harlequins London Irish Wasps Saracens
Fan Loyalty 39 52 26 40
Fan Evaluation 36 20 48 25
Fan Psychology 39 60 62 23
Fan Physiology 25 26 19 16
Fan Passion 139 158 155 104


The fans own expectations were compared to how a former professional saw the game. Within this they were scored, as the table above shows, on how their evaluation and opinions on how the match would go. An unnamed former international carried out an analysis in game, and the downtrodden losers knew what awaited them before the day began. The Wasps’ fans set out accepting defeat, which explains why their psychological results scored so high.
So, the two losers won the day in terms of passion. Overall the London Irish fans just edge it, but currently lie 2nd in the Aviva Premiership Passion Table, behind Gloucester.

It would certainly be of interest to see this study replicated on games Wasps’ fans expected to win. It does not take a scientist to know that their emotions would be completely different not only in victory, but also in defeat when the expectations were different.
Louisa Cheetham, Senior Sponsorship Manager at Aviva, said: “Our most passionate fans project shows that rugby truly is a fans game. Aviva want to get fans as close to the action as possible, and this experiment does just that. The two matches between the four London clubs were close affairs, and that is reflected in the results of the experiment. It’s interesting that the two losing clubs showed more passion!”

This comes across as a study with scale as its own worst enemy though. Success of a fan’s club dictates how defeat and victory affects us all. Whether that be through league positions or the importance of the outcome,or by the fact that form suggests a fan will expect a result and react accordingly. A test like this could find anyone low on passion under circumstances. Say England were to play a team of dogs, it would be mad to suggest the passion would flow, although for England to play a team of dogs things will have gone mad all over.

But what do you think? What strengths does this study have? Is this useful for you at all? With scale, could this find much more wide ranging results? It comes to the mind that this study ahead of every game in the league would be indicative of passion, with a season of unpredictable scores and results, and on a wider group of people with more likelihood to indicate an average of the fans involved.

Conclusion? Interesting, flawed and a start that could lead to one of the most interesting studies of fans across any sport. But with what has been on offer? Well, it hasn’t got my cortisol or testosterone on the rise, spit or no spit.

Let us know what you think.

Leinster fans of course. And we still like to call it Lansdowne rd.

The sample is far to small to provide a valid result.

Make it a 500 each and it would have value.
In a word the result will prove nothing.

geoff998rugby wrote:The sample is far to small to provide a valid result.

Make it a 500 each and it would have value.
In a word the result will prove nothing.

Indeed.

The testing etc is probably expensive, but a putting together a group of 50 or so fans of each team, and monitoring them over a season would give a really interesting gauge, and would allow you to factor in things like home/away, the team winning/losing etc.

geoff998rugby wrote:The sample is far to small to provide a valid result.

Make it a 500 each and it would have value.
In a word the result will prove nothing.

In the case of Saracens, that would have been impossible, only about 100 turn up to each match, to collect the litter up at the end.

As a one off test surely these tests are quite limited. If it was over a whole season then maybe it would be interesting to see who's hormone levels moved in time with the way their team was faring, then that would show who was most involved with their team?

It would also be interesting to know if alcohol was involved (probably!) and so whether that disorted the figures.